At 01:15 AM 9/1/97 +1000, you wrote:

One of the problems with all of this, as I see it, is the fact that
'Hitomi' pretended to be Japanese, and pretended to know all about
everything Japanese, and hence I have seen people writing that her
works (especially the Ukyou one) was something to base Japanese knowledge
on. Everyone who thought something of the sort missed out, because they
were believing a lie. They believed that what Hitomi wrote about Japan
and Japanese customs was not to be questioned, and truly correct. Now,
one must go back to the works and check for accuracy if one has been
basing their beliefs of Japan on these.

Exactly. I always asked Hitomi first if my portrayal was factually correct,
as she always seemed to be the expert, in fact, I always marvelled at the
skill of someone who claimed that English was not their first language.

If it was _just_ an alias for writing stories, it would have been fine.
If the person was just pretending to be someone _without_ a great
knowledge of Japan, then it would have been fine.

But to be so arrogant as to trick everyone (or almost everyone) into
believing that you are Japanese and hence are not to be questioned in
what you write, and to have people set their beliefs on a lie?

Exactly my point.

The first time I got a little bit iffy about all of this was when I
was searching through the RanmaML archives, and saw a reply that 'Hitomi'
had made to someone who wrote down "Hitomi-sama" as an example.

'Hitomi' went off 'her' rocker, and started yelling (caps lock-ing) a
reply ranting about how 'she' was not to be called that and how it
would disgrace 'her', etc, etc, etc.

I thought that was a tad strange at the time. If I called any of my
Japanese friends '-sama', _none_ of them would have reacted like that.
They may have politely requested me not to call them that, or something
similar ... but never would any of them have started yelling at me for
doing so.

Oh. Well. Good for you. I had no clue.

This is the disgrace of the 'Hitomi' thing. 'She' made people believe
in 'her' own fairy-tail views of Japan as "truth". Some astute people
noticed that 'she' did have a number of errors in 'her' version of
Japan and Japanese things. But not everyone would pick that up.

No. I'm guilty of believing.

But none of them are anywhere near an explanation of why 'she' lied to
people to make them think that her fanfics and what she said about
Japan was based on undisputable fact.

Yes.

I'm lucky that I got over trusting people online a year or so after I
started using the internet.

*sigh* Who CAN we trust?

Back to 'Hitomi' - someone obviously doesn't get out much.

Uh-huh.

=====
TimeRunner
Representative of the Crusaders of Nabiki Tendo at 
the Church of All Worlds

=====

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